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the monastery and say your prayers. I repeat, do not leave the monastery.
You have destroyed the church. Do not tempt me to destroy you.
The second was in German. My rough translation was:  Father
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Schellenberg. You have failed your homeland, you have failed your
church, and you have failed yourself. You have caused others to fail in
their faith. God damn you. If I am provided with the opportunity, I
will kill you. Know that, and govern yourself accordingly.
There were no envelopes and no dates.
Michael O Flaherty s face was white.  There were threats against
him before! Someone must have been waiting for him to leave the
monastery, to travel somewhere. If only we had known, we would
have done something to try to protect him!
 You don t remember when you first saw the chessboard?
 The first time I noticed it was when I saw Father Schellenberg
playing with Colonel Bleier.
 Exactly.
 So you think it was Bleier?
 I don t know what to think, Michael. I filled him in on the con-
versation Brennan and I had had with Frau Professorin Doktor
Schliemann in Frankfurt. His blue eyes were as wide as those of a
child hearing a bedtime story.
 I d keep that board out of sight for now, Mike. We ll turn it over
to the police. But in the meantime, find a little hiding place for it.
 Oh, I will! You can be sure. That poor soul! We can t tell from the
notes whether the threats relate to his time with Pope John at the
Council, or his time afterwards when he returned to a more traditional
stance. Change your position and you have double the enemies!
 That reminds me of something else I meant to check. Do you
have any information on the popes? I m thinking of John xxiii and
Paul vi.
 The popes of the Vatican Council. I have a little set of cards,
Monty. Not a lot of information on each one, but here you go. He
dug around in a desk drawer and pulled out a packet of cards the size
of bookmarks, showing pictures and short biographical sketches of
each of the popes.
I found Pope Paul. The photo showed a man with short dark hair
on the sides, bald on top; he had black eyebrows and a long nose. It
was a dignified, intelligent face.  Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio
Maria Montini was born in 1897 to an upper-class Italian family. After
ordination in 1920 his studies included diplomacy and canon law. He
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spent some time in Warsaw, then returned to the Vatican where he
worked for the Secretariat of State for thirty years. During World War
ii he was responsible for relief work and the care of political refugees.
Montini was appointed archbishop of Milan and became known as the
 archbishop of the workers. When he succeeded John xxiii in 1963, he
was committed to continuing John s work on the Second Vatican
Council. Paul s encyclicals on celibacy (1967) and birth control (1968)
are still controversial today and tend to overshadow the other accom-
plishments of this gentle and brilliant man. He died in 1978.
Pope John, who knew our murder victim before and during the
Vatican Council, was heavy, round, kind, and good-humoured, as his
photograph attested. He was born Angelo Roncalli, in northern Italy
in 1881. He was third in a farming family of thirteen children. He was
quoted as saying:  There are three ways of ruining oneself: women,
gambling and farming. My father chose the most boring. Roncalli
entered the seminary at the age of twelve and continued his education
until he spent a year in the army as a volunteer. He returned to his
studies and received his doctorate in theology. Roncalli was ordained
in 1904. He gained an understanding of the working classes, taught in
a seminary, then served in the medical and chaplaincy corps in the
army during World War i.
The First War. I thought of the holes in the wall of the Oratorio of
St. Philomena, from the grenade that exploded during the war. It
reminded me that I had not yet dropped my photos off to be printed.
I had taken a picture of the plaque setting out the history of the ora-
torio. I got out my Schellenberg notebook and wrote:  Take film in.
I read the rest of Roncalli s biography: his ascension to the throne
of Peter in 1958, and his convening of the Council in 1962.
 One more thing before I go, Mike. Those papers we brought back
from Schellenberg s room in the monastery.
 Oh, yes.
 Brennan thought it might be prudent for you and me to go through
them ourselves before we provide them to the police or to anyone else.
Get a sneak preview, not that I m expecting anything that will enable us
to wrap up the case. But we d like to know, right? Because if we hand
them over to anybody else, we ll never know for sure what was in them.
 Right! Sort of like being the first archaeologists on the dig.
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 Exactly. So I ve put them in a locked conference room at my law
office, and you can go in there and look through them privately when-
ever you have time.
 Good plan.
 Just call me at Stratton Sommers when you want to start. You
have my number.
 Yes, I do. You ll be hearing from me soon, and I hope I find some-
thing revealing!
When I returned to the office, I found a message from one Normie
Collins. I dialled the familiar number, and my daughter picked it up
on the first ring.
 Hello?
 May I speak to Miss Collins please?
 Daddy, it s me!
 Hello, sweetheart. I know it s you. I got your message.
 Mummy says you have a job for me to do, on the murder case.
 That s right. I need a bit of research done.
 Okay.
 You have a collection of holy cards, pictures of angels and saints
with little write-ups about their lives.
 I have tons of them. The ones I got from Father Burke, some
other ones I got at the church fair, and a whole whack from Auntie
Margaret when we were in Cape Breton.
 Perfect. Have you got a pen and paper there?
 Just a minute. The receiver banged against the kitchen wall, then
she was back.  I ve got a pencil and paper. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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